The Atomic Theory of Bicycles

For anyone interested in bicycles, or atoms, or - even better - the interaction of bicycles and atoms, then Flann o'Brien's masterful The Third Policeman is a must. The plot, and ideas, are too varied and complex to outline here, but one concept which the Policeman comes up with is the the cross over, at atomic level, between bikes and their riders. Sergeant Pluck explains all to the confused narrator:

Do you happen to know what takes place when you strike a bar of iron with a good coal hammer or with a blunt instrument?'

‘What?'

‘When the wallop falls, the atoms are bashed away down to the bottom of the bar and compressed and crowded there like eggs under a good clucker. After a while in the course of time they swim around and get back at last to where they were. But if you keep hitting the bar long enough and hard enough they do not get a chance to do this and what happens then?'

‘That is a hard question.'

‘Ask a blacksmith for the true answer and he will tell you that the bar will dissipate itself away by degrees if you persevere with the hard wallops. Some of the atoms of the bar will go into the hammer and the other half into the table or the stone or the particular article that is underneath the bottom of the bar.'

‘That is well-known,' I agreed.

‘The gross and net result of it is that people who spent most of their natural lives riding iron bicycles over the rocky roadsteads of this parish get their personalities mixed up with the personalities of their bicycle as a result of the interchanging of the atoms of each of them and you would be surprised at the number of people in these parts who nearly are half people and half bicycles.'

I let go a gasp of astonishment that made a sound in the air like a bad puncture.

‘And you would be flabbergasted at the number of bicycles that are half-human almost half-man, half-partaking of humanity.'

As a result, a man who is more than half bicycle can be spotted as he spends a lot of time leaning with one elbow on walls or standing propped by one foot on kerbstones. Hopefully that won't happen to me and Olivier, though 11 days over the rocky roadsteads of the Atomic Ride could be dangerous...